Modern escalators and moving walkways are designed and constructed with aesthetics as a major consideration. The desire is to achieve a streamlined and clean appearance, and to do away with the bulky, heavy components of the past. To this end, slender balustrades are preferred along with sleek handrails and decks. One of the most popular balustrade materials preferred for use with these modern transporters is glass. Glass is relatively easy to work with, structurally sound and architecturally attractive. Glass balustrades have narrow metal handrail guide rails mounted on them to guide and control movement of the handrails during operation of the transporter. The guide rails are spring clipped, bolted, or adhesively secured to the glass so as to be firmly held in place. A hard paper gasket is frequently used between the guide rail and the edges of the balustrade to increase friction between the guide rail and balustrade, and to protect the glass from chipping or cracking. A plastic strip or strips of low friction plastic is often mounted on the guide rail to form the contact surfaces for engagement by the handrail. The newels of the balustrade are generally provided with pin bearings over which the handrail moves as it enters and exits its passenger-transporting path of travel. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,836,353 granted Jun. 6, 1989 to W. Adrian, et al.; 4,946,020 granted Aug. 7, 1990 to J. A. Rivera, et al.; and 4,982,829 granted Jan. 8, 1991 to G. E. Johnson, et al., disclose variations of the balustrade and handrail system described generally above.
While the above-noted balustrade-handrail systems are aesthetically pleasing, it will be appreciated that the internal components, such as the guide rail, are not particularly well shielded from the ambient surroundings. This relative exposure of the guide rail and the newel pin bearings can add to the noisiness of the transporter. The use of the plastic strips on the guide rail to contact the handrail, and the replacement of the pin bearings with the plastic strip will produce a smooth low friction interface between the handrail and guide rail which will minimize noise and guide rail vibration, but will not eliminate the vibration. Thus with the prior art systems described above, some vibration will be induced into the guide rail by the handrail sliding over it, and that vibration will be passed along to the glass balustrade. The glass balustrade, due to the resiliency and flexibility of glass, when caused to vibrate, can act as a loudspeaker and actually magnify and convert the handrail vibration into noise.